The Looney Liberal Chronicles: Postscript

 by Phillip Ellis Jackson  

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Just when you thought it couldn’t get any loonier, along comes an email from Vermont.

Okay.  So here I am, sitting at my desk minding my own business, and I get the following email from someone at a university in Vermont entitled “Get a life, stop blaming others for your lack of intelligence.”  Intrigued, I read on.

Vermont Lib:  Good Morning.  I find it odd that you throw around LIBERAL like it's some kind of insult.  Let’s go through some famous LIBERALS: Galileo, Newton, George Washington, oh, and don't forget JESUS (that guy that you "conservatives" love so much).

Jesus?  George Washington?  Galileo?  What am I missing here?  Other than my essay on moral relativism (“What Kind of Car Would Jesus Drive to Take His Girlfriend to an Abortion Clinic?”) I have absolutely no idea what this guy is talking about.  Then again, he identifies himself with “famous liberals,” so logic and consistency of thought is not a formal requirement for initiating any discussion, whether in person or by email.  So I read on.

Vermont Lib:  In your world, we would have ignored these LOONEY LIBERALS, right?  

Ah, now it becomes clearer.  VL has stumbled across my Looney Liberal Chronicles, and has taken offense.  So I read on to see what’s making him mad.  Was it my discussion of pacifism?  Pre-emptive war?  Social and economic policy?  The politics of science?  No.  It was something much more odious.  The Looney Liberal Chronicles, which are a collection of email correspondences I engaged in with various liberals in the US and abroad, is nothing short of a Conservative plot to silence anyone who disagrees with [pick one: Conservatism in general, or me in particular].

Vermont Lib:  Your kind was around back then and DID try to silence every one of these people.  Please don't repeat history, as your kind has already done time and time again.

My kind?  My Italian ancestors?  Scotch or English ancestors?  Catholic ancestors?  Tall guys, balding guys, fat guys, white guys, educated guys, right-handed guys, nearsighted guys?  Surely he isn’t implying that to reprint emails from liberals espousing liberal views I’m somehow part of an organized, Gestapo-like cabal of hood-wearing nightriders stamping out opposition to all that I believe?  Well actually, it appears that he is.  Because I had the temerity to make fun of the silliness expressed by liberals themselves — using their own words — I’m now an official member of the Spanish Inquisition.

Intrigued, and more than a little bemused, I read on.

Vermont Lib:  I understand leaving your comfort zone is SO not conservative, but try it sometime.  Go kayaking, swimming, biking, hiking, sailing, skydiving, DO SOMETHING.  It's clear why you are so frustrated, pissed-off, and closed-minded.  Your brain needs fresh air to operate properly!  So take it easy on using LIBERAL as an insult.

Okay, now I’m really confused.  I swim (in my own pool of course), have hiked through England and Scotland in my mid-50s (backpack and all), go sailing occasionally on my neighbor’s boat, and even jumped out of an airplane once when I was younger.  Because I’ve never kayaked I’m “frustrated, pissed off and closed minded?”  No, that can’t be right.  So I fall back on the logical assumption that he’s referring to my Looney Liberal Chronicles; but I’m still confused, because judging by the content of the screed, it’s clear that he hasn’t actually read it. 

Could I really be receiving an email from a college kid in a liberal, New England state accusing me of multiple atrocities simply because he dislikes the title to one of my essays?   College kid, liberal state, hyperbolic over-reaction . . . yep, I think I got it right.  So I sent him a little reply, beginning with the obvious connection.

Phil:  Not surprising that an "edu" email would accuse me of trying to silence people by exposing the content of liberal political reasoning.  [I] must have touched a nerve, eh?  Or is it that you never read past the title of the 13 chapters, and just assumed you knew what I was writing about because that fit your template.  Like a good liberal you decided to label as hate speech anything that disagrees with your point of view.  Contrary to what you think, the farthest thing on my mind is silencing a LIBERAL!  The more they argue their points, the more their logic (if you can call it that) is exposed.

There was also the little matter of “Jesus” that he referred to, a subject I was somewhat familiar with given my Catholic education, the Catholic novel I wrote with one of the church’s leading theologians, and my own references to Jesus in my political writings.

Phil:  As for liberalism and Jesus, you may want to go to the archives [Note: I assumed he found the Looney Liberal Chronicles on the Intellectual Conservative website] and read "What kind of car would Jesus drive to take his girlfriend to an abortion clinic?"  So much for a simple-minded comparison of Jesus with present day liberalism.  But then again, that would mean that you actually have to read past the title.

I thanked him for giving me some great material for future chapters, should the day come when I ever found a reason to write a postscript to the original Looney Liberal Chronicles.  I figured that would be the last I’d probably hear from him, though something gnawed at me in the back of my mind.  This was a liberal, after all, who had seen fit to attack my writings without ever bothering to read them.  So why would he necessarily take up the challenge now and go to the trouble of finding out what he was actually talking about?

A couple of hours later I received the following message from him again.

Vermont Lib:  Oh my. I did read some of your piece, but couldn't muster the sadism to finish it.

Now, I’m thinking “progress” here.  After writing me a blistering email objecting to what I wrote, VL now actually went to the source and read “some” of it.  There was still a question of which parts he read before swooning to a faint at the sheer sadistic nature of the work, but that was a little detail I’d leave for further exploration later.  Right now I wanted to hear more about his critical analysis of my 60,000 word piece.

Vermont Lib:  However, there you go again spewing insult after insult, yet failing to make any points or bring any evidence to the table.  Instead you say "liberal" this and "liberal" that as if I should be ashamed for not being JUST LIKE YOU.

Huh?  Maybe what he actually read (or more properly phrased, the 99.9% that he didn’t actually read) should be brought to the table now, not later.  But biting my lower lip in my best Bill Clinton imitation, I pressed on to hear more of his reasoned analysis.

Vermont Lib:  I like how you failed to respond to the other people I mentioned:  Galileo, Newton, George Washington.  It's easy for you to respond to Jesus, since that's a topic that's been discussed over and over, and of course all YOU have to do it point to someone else's writing instead of coming up with insight of your own.

Someone else’s writing?  What exactly was he talking about?  The “What kind of car would Jesus drive?” article was mine, as was the novel I co-authored on Catholic theology.  Then it hit me again.  Not only had VL still not read the Looney Liberal Chronicles he was condemning, he wasn’t reading anything I wrote.  What’s more, because he hadn’t read it, he was accusing me of not even writing it!  Chalk up another prime example of Liberal Logic 101.

Then we got onto the matter of my academic credentials.  He was associated with a respected Northeast university, and I was obviously envious of him.

Vermont Lib:  Yes, I have a "edu" email.  It is just like people like you to group one set of people (EVERYONE who is attaining a higher education in hope to become successful in life) and bash them.  Maybe you are just jealous because you never had the pleasure of having an "edu" email.   You don't see me labeling you for a HOTMAIL address.

Now, I’m beginning to ask myself, does this guy even know that I have a Ph.D?  And if he did, would it even matter?  So I read on.

Vermont Lib:  Read the preceding and next paragraphs a couple times and see why you are a hypocrite for 1) LABELING me for my email host of all pathetic things, and then 2) accusing me of LABELING others.  Those conservatives really taught you well, huh?

So, the guy who started off talking about my lack of intelligence, made references to “your world” and “your kind,” and then labeled me as pissed off and closed-minded while grouping me with “those conservatives,” is lecturing me about labeling people.  It just doesn’t get any loonier than this.  So I moved on to his finale.

Vermont Lib:  You can't sit here and say that liberals label as hate speech anything that doesn't agree with their point of view.  Saying that is like saying "if you give me criticism, your opinion doesn't count because you disagree."  Circular logic, anyone?  That must be how your kind came to be.  Your silly psychology methods may work on the masses, but not on intelligent individuals.

Now I’m part of “your kind” working my psychological mischief on the masses, but not on “intelligent individuals” who are immune to my dastardly ways. But enough about not labeling people. VL finally ends his screed with:

Vermont Lib:  You still failed to respond to my original email.  Using the word LIBERAL as an insult was the subject.  I expected you to blabber on about all kinds of other irrelevant crap, but hopefully your next reply will have some sense to it.

A guy writes me about my efforts to silence liberals, basing his judgments on something he has never actually read, then accuses me of not writing the things that I actually wrote because he hasn’t read them either, and I’m somehow negligent for failing to respond to his original email?  Respond?  Hell, I’m still trying to figure out if this is some kind of practical joke.

Before I can even contemplate a reply, I get the following message.

Vermont Lib:  Hi, I take back what I said about you pointing to someone else's piece.  I thought you were referring to another work on lulu.tv.  I apologize.   I know you are going to jump all over it and use it to smear and add it to your "chapters," so go ahead.  At least one of us as the ability to admit when we are wrong.

Now first of all, as I’ve done consistently throughout my Looney Liberal Chronicles, I don’t smear anyone (unless repeating their own words is considered a “smear”).  In fact, I take great pains to edit out inadvertent misspellings or awkward grammar so as not to ridicule the person, but rather allow us to focus on their words.  I will admit to being a little suspicious of his explanation that he confused something I wrote with something that would appear on lulu.tv, whatever that is, but I won’t belabor the point.  What I will point out, which is what I said I would point out in my email response back to him, is:

Phil:  As for your mistake arising from your own admitted shortcoming in not reading what I say before you criticize it, again if you actually read the Chronicles you’ll see that I don’t do that either.  If I reference it at all it will be as part of a broader point about Liberals automatically assuming things without bothering to know what they’re talking about in the first place, and I’ll include your somewhat panicky apology as well.

So, consider it referenced.  Returning once more to VL’s reply back to me,

Vermont Lib:  About the "What kind of car would Jesus drive to take his girlfriend to an abortion clinic?" piece, I understand how Jesus's liberalism  can't be compared to today's, however my point was that you use the  word "liberal" so liberally as an insult, it's pathetic.  Taking words and turning them into insults or giving them negative connotations for no reason has caused plenty of problems in history. Please stick to the topic.

Okay.  Sticking to the topic, I’ll ask again — what are you talking about?  You haven’t even read my essays.  How do you know what they say?  If you don’t know what they say, how can you possibly arrive at any conclusions?  You counsel about “taking words and turning them into insults or giving them negative connotations for no reason has caused plenty of problems in history.”  You might start by looking at what you yourself are doing.

At least, that’s what I would have said, but before I could answer another thoughtful piece came into my inbox titled “whatup home slice.”  The guy who I told was destined to be part of any future Looney Liberal Chronicles chapters, and who talked about me adding his words to my chapters, now suddenly had a chance to look back on what he said and decided everything was now off the record.  Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, particularly when he’s the one who initiated the contact, and kept writing me even after I thanked him for “giving me more material for future chapters!”  I can’t help it if he suddenly realized that he looks like a complete buffoon.  As with my friend Harry, I’ll protect his actual identity, but his words speak for themselves. [Note: this is the original email as it appears with no grammatical or spelling corrections, since it was intended to read a particular way by the author.]

Vermont Lib:  hey homie! i liked your work with the nigerian scam letters. [A reference to my own website, which he finally accessed, where I make fun of Nigerian scam artists preying on unsuspecting people.]  yay!  funny stuff, kinda! you should be a comedian!! oh wait, you're Phil Jackson your life IS a joke. just KIDDDDINg!1 HAHAHA you are HELAIARRRRIOUS!!  and SMARRT too!  the ladies must think you r da BOMMMM! werd.

Yes, it was definitely getting “werd”, but every excursion into the liberal mind follows a similar route. 

By now I finally had a chance to reply to some of what VL passed off as legitimate discussion.  I Googled his actual name and it turned up as a person with some responsibility at the university.  Now granted his reasoning and writing abilities were on a 10th-grade level, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t credentialed, particularly at a Northeast liberal university.  So, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I relayed what I found and said that I would identify him this way should I ever write this postscript “unless you like me to be more specific about your credentials.”  I also assured him again that:

Phil:  I won’t use your real name because if you actually read my Looney Liberal Chronicles, you’ll see that I don’t do that.  I challenge the ideas Liberals offer, not try to humiliate them personally, which is something Liberals do as a substitute for actual discussion.

I did, though, remark that it was rather curious that VL was in a bit of a snit over having his words exposed to a broader public. 

Phil:  Now you’re panicking because a lot of people are going to find out what you really think and say in your candid moments?  And you’re upset that I’m going to help get your message out?  How curious for someone who accused me of trying to silence liberal thought . . . The great thing about the Chronicles (and why it undoubtedly gets under your skin) is that I allow you to make your own case using your own words.  You condemn me for condemning liberalism without knowing what I said about it, other than having read “some” of the chapter titles. Even Harry, the Brazilians, or the others I communicated with weren’t that shallow!

Ending the exchange, I told VL
 
Phil:  Once again, it’s always great to get an insight into the liberal mind.  Looking forward to your next email, which I will publish as well if it’s as illuminating and insightful as the others you’ve sent. Best regards, Phil

What I got back was another assertion from VL that I can’t tell anybody about what he actually wrote, followed by another email less than 15 minutes later urging me to “Please use this in your writings.  I encourage it.” 

Phil:  As you’d see from the Looney Liberal Chronicles, if you actually bothered to read it, all the emails I get are public domain, just as mine are.  I’ll use them in an article or any other written format if I so choose.  I just won’t print your true name, because I don’t want to embarrass you personally, just make sure your ideas get a full expression.

Now I completely understand why VL would be reluctant to see what passes for a coherent train of thought see the light of day, but hey, he’s the one who got this ball rolling.  I have no trouble standing behind what I write.  Why should a good Liberal have any concerns about expressing his beliefs? 

Perhaps a tiny little insight is gained from the following exchange, where we return once again to the question of whether VL has actually read any of the material he is so ardently criticizing.

Vermont Liberal:  You again claim that I didn't read any of your works.  Why exactly would I have emailed you asking you not to use Liberal as an insult if I hadn't?  I read what you wrote and found it interesting, although much of it I don't agree with. You just love to twist things around, don't you?

Um, well, as I explained to VL in a follow up message:

Phil:  You might want to get your story straight about what you did/didn’t read.  In the span of 7 hours you’ve gone from reading “some” of my Looney Liberal Chronicles but admitting you couldn’t “finish it,” to saying “I read what you wrote and found it interesting.” The LLC is over 60,000 words, in 13 chapters.  So pick a version of your own story and stick with it.  Did you read the first few paragraphs to Chapter 1 and call it a day, just the chapter titles, or did you actually “read what you wrote” (all 13 chapters)? And when you settle on a version of the truth, how exactly will you reconcile it with what you’ve said on this subject before?  This is the kind of stuff the LLC is filled with — but you obviously know that, since you read it.  Or am I just making that part up to trick you into agreeing and further illustrating that you haven’t actually read it?  Hmmm.

VL 10:37 AM:  I did read some of your piece, but couldn't muster the sadism to finish it.

VL 5:47 PM:  You again claim that I didn't read any of your works.  Why exactly would I have emailed you asking you not to use Liberal as an insult if I hadn't?  I read what you wrote and found it interesting, although much of it I don't agree with.

Our friend in Vermont was undaunted by such challenges, though.  He was on a mission, and nothing — not even not knowing what he was talking about — was going to deter him from his quest.

Vermont Lib:   You failed to address the point again.  The topic is:  Using "Liberal" as an insult.  Try to reply with something about this subject, Mr. Jackson.  I'm trying to gather a consensus of thought from many sources, and you really don't want to give a straight response on why you use the word "Liberal" as an insult.  You seem to have this mentality in your writing of: "if I disagree with you, I classify you as a stupid LIBERAL."  Even your Chronicles are titled "LOONEY(sic) Liberal  Chronicles." Do you see us crazy, wild, loony liberals calling you "crazy conservatives?"  NO. As much as you would LOVE to revive McCarthyism, it's not beneficial to anyone.

Technically, he had me.  VL had not called me crazy.  True, he compared what I did to McCarthyism, talked about my efforts to silence liberal thought (rather than simply expose it for the silliness it is), tossed around “your kind” and “your world” in a disparaging manner.  But to a good liberal, painting your opponent with a broad brush, no matter how unfairly, is just, well, no big deal.  But should I insinuate that Liberal thought may be “Looney,” well it is McCarthyism all over again.

VL was also greatly offended that I had Googled his name in an effort to determine whether I was dealing with a somewhat unhinged faculty member or student.  It incensed him that the name I turned up was actually a relative of his, not he himself. 

Vermont Liberal:  Now I know where you are getting your information from about me.   GOOGLE! Ha, how can anyone trust your silly research when you type something into Google.com and believe everything you read?  You are reading about my uncle X. [Note: all references to the uncle’s identity or VL’s identity have been edited out] . . . He helps sick children . . . Please do not harass him or post  information about him.  Those are his credentials (far more impressive than anything you possess).  Not mine. How about you try getting sources from somewhere other than GOOGLE, you f**king twit . . . Use your brain for once.  I know it's hard to open your mind and think in a macro sense, but please give it a try for everyone's sake. You won't be posting this in your self-glorified chapters, I'm sure.  You sure as hell can't afford to have your readers know you are wrong at least twice in each email.

Of course, VL completely missed the point that the only way he knew about my mistake is that I checked my information with him first before rushing to a judgment or drawing a conclusion simply from conjecture.  But that, as Al Gore says, is just a detail.  And if he’d bother to read what I actually wrote before sending me an email condemning me for my words, he’d have known that no such taunt about not having the courage to publish his criticism of me was needed.  This kind of rant is exactly the kind of thing I publish!

Phil:  This is great!  I haven't seen a nearly complete liberal meltdown like this in a long time.  "You're trying to suppress Liberal thought"  "Oh no, you're actually going to publish what I say!  You can't repeat my words."  "[No, I changed my mind.] Please use this in your writings."  You're all over the map, and it's only been about 12 hours since I accessed your first email.

Like I said, I wanted to make sure I got your credentials correct.  I thought you had some formal training (albeit clearly not in government and politics), but I’m not surprised that you have no credentials.  Just opinions, uninformed by the need to read what you criticize.  You’ve obviously read nothing of my attacks on paleoconservatives and white nationalists as well (“In Their Own Words: The Undisguised Racism of the Far, Far, Far Right,” “The ‘True Conservative’ Racial Purity Quiz,” etc.), yet you’ve gathered all the information you need to form an opinion about my political beliefs based on what you assume I might have said in my Looney Liberal Chronicles.

The difference between you and me is that I asked you to validate the information I found under your name by accessing your school’s public records.  You, on the other hand, throw around words like McCarthyism to allegedly describe what I do while admitting up front you’ve never read any of my work.

So, in the best tradition of unapologetic liberalism, our friend in Vermont got down to business and returned to the central theme of his original email:  Phil Jackson, you must defend yourself against what I think you might have said, even though I’ve never really read any of your stuff.  Oh, and I’ll further assume that the Looney Liberal Chronicles is in bookstores, instead of offered on-line.

Vermont Lib:  This really is pathetic.  Do people actually pay for your "book?" You still have failed to respond to my original topic.  It's really not that complicated.  The topic, since you clearly forgot, was:  "Using the word 'Liberal' as an insult." Please respond to something of this effect or don't respond. You are the one with the meltdown, dear Jackson.  I proposed a simple topic to you and you have YET to clearly discuss it.  Instead you ramble on about how Liberals are so crazy! . . . What exactly are YOUR credentials?  Graduating college, degrees, experience?  From the sound of it, you just love to ramble on as if you were Gods gift to the world without actually making a point.

I’ve always been amazed by people who conclude, initially, that you’re somehow jealous of them because they’re a student at a particular university and you’re not, then when they find out you have a Ph.D. from a pretty good university (along with practical experience in politics and business that help inform your judgments), you’re now just an egomaniac writing for his own attention.  Clearly there was more behind all of this than some college kid dropping me an email to lecture me on my behavior as he imagined it might be, but I didn’t exactly know what it was until this next round of email traffic.

The ancient Romans had an expression in vino veritas.  The modern-day equivalent would be something like “let a liberal talk long enough, and you find out what’s really behind his words.”  So I guess it wasn’t much of a surprise when VL finally admitted what he was really doing, and why he was so mad that I wasn’t playing the game by his rules.

Vermont Lib:  I sent emails mimicking the one I originally sent to you to many other people with multiple and varied opinions, including people who seem more frantic than you (don't feel flattered, you weren't the only one), including Bill O'Riley.  Each time, I have gotten clear, concise, intelligent responses from each of them. My response to them was simply: "Thank you for your response. I found it intelligent and insightful.  Keep up the good work.”

Since I didn't get any decent reply from you other than pure rage and pretentious egotistical rambling, I continued to pursue a decent response. I will give up if I get another email from you that avoids the subject.

Now anyone who truly believes that Bill O’Reilly or any other person of “multiple and varied opinions” would respond this way to VL’s original email will also believe that VL actually read more than the chapter headings of the Looney Liberal Chronicles.  [In actual fact, I think he just stumbled across the title and went no farther.]  Here, again, is his original email to me complete and uncut.

Subject:  Get a life, stop blaming others for your lack of intelligence.

Good Morning,

I find it odd that you throw around LIBERAL like it's some kind of insult.  Lets go through some famous LIBERALS: Galileo, Newton, George Washington, oh . . . and don't forget JESUS (that guy that you "conservatives" love so much).

In your world, we would have ignored these LOONEY LIBERALS, right?   Your kind was around back then and DID try to silence every one of these people.  Please don't repeat history, as your kind has already done time and time again.

I understand leaving your comfort zone is SO not conservative, but try it sometime.  Go kayaking, swimming, biking, hiking, sailing, skydiving, DO SOMETHING.  It's clear why you are so frustrated, pissed-off, and closed-minded. Your brain needs fresh air to operate properly!

So take it easy on using LIBERAL as an insult.

Yep.  I’m sure Bill O’Reilly wrote back discussing his varied extracurricular interest and foreswore any future efforts to “silence” liberals, of course after apologizing for his past sins and throwing in a few good words about Galileo, Newton, George Washington and Jesus, to which VL would write back, “Thank you for your response. I found it intelligent and insightful.  Keep up the good work.”

And pigs fly.  No, the sad thing about our friend in Vermont is that down deep, while he knows he’s just a shallow misinformed soul, he (like a good liberal) thinks that none of this really matters.  Feelings are a substitute for facts, and what he said or did yesterday shouldn’t restrict what he says or does today.  Therefore, there is no contradiction between saying you’ve read some, part, none, most, or all of a work you’re criticizing.  If it’s tactically advantageous to say you’re read something in email #3, but disavow that statement completely in email #5, well, that’s your problem because unlike you, his motives are pure.  And pure motives trump a lack of informed judgment any day of the week — unless, of course, you’re a conservative who needs to get a life and stop blaming others for your lack of intelligence.  Then you invoke a charge of McCarthyism without fully understanding that this is precisely what McCarthy did in the first place to his political opponents!

Irony, they say, is often lost on the ironic. Because I had the temerity to ask VL whether he actually knew what he was talking about instead of automatically apologizing for his imagined grievances, things didn’t quite work out the way he envisioned; for you see, in the best liberal tradition of saying one thing while meaning something entirely different, this entire email exchange wasn’t a search for truth, but a self-described ploy to mask a hidden agenda.

Vermont Lib:  I think you just failed my little experiment.  However, you are a model of my hypothesis; one of the few.  Congrats!

Well, it’s nice to know I succeeded at something in the eyes of my new Liberal friend. I thought this kind of stuff was pretty silly back in the 60s when my high school friends would write the same letter to the White House, key members of Congress, and other public figures criticizing some conservative policy.  They’d get a terse, but polite one-line response from the White House noting their concern but saying nothing of substance, and a glowing, atta-boy reply from a critic of the policy.  In this they discovered an apparently heretofore unknown fact of life.  If you start off questioning someone’s intelligence and tell them to “get a life,” they won’t respond as positively as if you praise them for their efforts (or criticize their opponents).  What exactly you learn from this “experiment” I’m not entirely sure, particularly if you’ve passed the point in life where you’re now walking upright instead of crawling and no longer pooping in your shorts.  But to a liberal hell-bent on proving his intellectual and moral superiority, I guess this kind of exercise is considered time well spent.

Despite all his bravado, though, I think our liberal friend in Vermont knows down deep that he really stepped in it this time, particularly when he offered this thought in one of his more lucid moments.

Vermont Lib: We all know you are going to cut and slice up my emails to make my look like a lunatic ("your emails are looney enough and speak for themselves!").

No.  As I said before and was repeated above, no cut and slice is necessary (and it’s not the way the Looney Liberal Chronicles works anyway).  The full quote of mine was:

Phil:  So keep it coming.  You’re as looney as they come, based on what I’ve already illustrated in the LLC.  Pure emotion, a virtual absence of any factual basis to back up your assertions about what I’ve actually done, hyperbolic comparisons based on words you’ve never read — it just doesn’t get any better than this!

Sadly, as with all great intellectual exchanges, this too had finally come to an end. 

Vermont Lib:  [You] failed to reply to the topic. Have a great day.  Responses will not be replied to.  I've given you a chance.  Your responses will be cited and noted, but with a huge asterisk next to them. I'd say thanks, but yea.

And then, as quickly as he appeared, Vermont Lib suddenly went away — gone, but certainly not forgotten. 

We owe another debt of gratitude to Vermont Lib who, like the other great minds featured in the Looney Liberal Chronicles, has done more to define liberal thought than he possibly could have imagined.  He was, as I told him, “the gift that keeps on giving.” 

Harry would be proud.

Looney Liberal Chronicles, The Left Wing

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